The Cape Lookout Studies Program and the North Carolina Maritime Museum have a license plate program with a great conservation message.

By purchasing the special “Protect Wild Dolphin” NC Maritime Museum special license plate you will be supporting the museum’s research, conservation and education programs. Demonstrating your interest in protecting bottlenose dolphins and their habitat and making your car look better!

The coolest drivers Protect Wild Dolphins

The NCMM license plate proceeds help protect and increase our understanding of bottlenose dolphins that frequent the North Carolina coast.

Revenues from the plate sales will benefit the Cape Lookout Studies Program through the Friends of the Museum to support the education, conservation and research programs of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort.

Keith Rittmaster with the right plate

Protect Wild Dolphins License Plate, better than an OBX sticker

Sale of the dolphin plates will benefit both this project, and environmental studies and educational field trips that are part of the Maritime Museum’s Cape Lookout Studies Program. For each $30 plate purchased, the Friends of the Maritime Museum support group will receive $20. To personalize a dolphin plate requires an additional $20.

Breakdown of Protect Wild Dolphins” license plate sales by quarter. It’s time to make your mark on the graph!

Marissa McCabe, an elementary school girl from Wake Forest, NC learned about our program of Monofilament Recycling and Recovery . On her own she created a very catchy ‘save the dolphins’ campaign. This is the info that she circulated.And, to add to the appeal she made small change purses for people collecting their ‘Change for Change’. When they donated their money, they could keep the purses. Here are pictures of both sides of the purse.

Her card reads: “Change for Change”. Bottlenose dolphins are getting entangled in discarded fishing line. This is killing and harming these beautiful dolphins off the NC Coast. Please consider donating the change you collect to protect this precious marine wildlife.

What a wonderful, thoughtful and caring act of contributing Marissa did. Thanks, Marissa, maybe you will inspire others.

We only have 3 days left to take advantage of a matching funds offer. (Sounds like NPR).southernfriedscience.comis offering to match any funds donated to Bonehenge for the next 3 daysIf you scroll down on their site, you will come to an image on the right of a Sperm Whale skeleton that says ‘donate now’. There is a link to Bonehenge.org but don’t click the link because you will only get the matching funds by donating on his southernfriedscience site. Take a look at the Bonehenge.org site though, it is really interesting and worth donating to. A sperm whale skeleton is being re-articulated here in Beaufort, NC in a building built just for this project. There are some state of the art procedures being used such as x-rays of one of the flippers that was frozen at the time of stranding to assure accuracy in arranging the complex flipper bones, comparisons to human bones of the same approximate age, analysis of stomach contents and bone degreasing. We are learning from what has and has not worked in the past.Thanks !

New wheels for the Cape!

It took a long-time volunteer and friend like John Brewer to know just what we needed in a vehicle for the museum’s field station at Cape Lookout. “Let me help you find a good truck for a great program” he said. And it took the thoughtfulness and generosity of the donors listed here. So when the Chevy Blazer (donated by Cherry Point MCAS) finally had to be retired this summer after 7 years of hard duty hauling people, gear, supplies, and dead whales at Cape Lookout, a loose conspiracy was formed to purchase a replacement vehicle for the Cape Lookout Studies Program. A

fundraiser led by long-time supporter Haywood Holderness raised $8,945 from 36 people from 6 states. This enabled us to purchase a 1984 4-wheel-drive Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup truck. John then spent 10 days customizing it for the Cape by building a top carrier, installing a bumper push bar, taking out the carpeting and weather-stripping (they trap sand, salt, and moisture), replacing electric window cranks and door locks with manual ones (the salt air at the Cape is hard on electronics), replacing worn-out parts, installing large tires on wide rims, and painting it top and

bottom, inside and out, with the most rust resistant coatings available. The result is pictured above. Thanks also to Kittrell’s Auto Parts in Havelock and Atlantic Auto Salvage for their help in this project. Thousands of students, young and old alike

will benefit from the generosity. If you’re feeling left out because you’re not included here, don’t worry, donations are being accepted for new projects!

Please Help us Replace the Blazer

**NOTE: This is an older post, the blazer was replaced forever ago, but the needs of the program go on, click here to see how you can help.***

After 7 years on the Cape our Chevy Blazer from the NCMM field station is dead. We are giving you an opportunity to help us replace it. Ideally we’re looking for a donation of a good 8-cylinder 4WD vehicle with big tires and a trailer hitch. If you have any contacts that might help us get one please let me know. Also, Haywood Holderness is leading a fundraiser to help us purchase one if necessary. We have $6,950 so far and our goal is $10,000 by September 10th to help us purchase a used vehicle. If you could contribute to this or know anyone who can, please pass this message along and send checks payable to Friends of the Museum with the donation form before
September 10th, 2004 to:Haywood Holderness
Westminster Presbyterian Church
3639 Old Chapel Hill Road
Durham, NC 27707Download and print Donation Form in
Microsoft Word format (19KB)Download & print Donation Form in PDF format (71k)

I will acknowledge and update all contributors. All contributions are tax-deductible. And just to make it fun, we’ve come up with contribution categories:

UPDATE: This is an old post, and the Blazer was replaced! While we no longer need these wheels, the needs of the program continue. Please check out our donations page for opportunities to contribute money, resources and time to the Cape Lookout Studies Program.

Tursiops

Nicole

Tursiops

I just talked to the first responder. No conclusion could be made. The injury to the jaw was fresh, but didn’t appear to be caused by the beaching. The researchers are always careful not to speculate in cases like this because there are so many variables.